Through the Looking Glass
by Twisted Schadenfreude
Summary: Rated for nudity (nothing sexual in the slightest), and teenage angst. Juvia and a pack of Sharpies. These are the colours she sees when she looks into the mirror.


**Through the Looking Glass**

Juvia and a pack of Sharpies. These are the colours she sees when she looks into the mirror.

* * *

Lucy Heartphilia –_love rival_ Juvia muttered under her breath –had worn a particularly revealing, jaw dropping, and admittedly, stunning piece of apparel that day at the guild. It was a pink, chiffon mini-dress with a deep plunge at her chest, and flattered her generous curves perfectly. Grouping this with Lucy's flawless skin, golden hair, and doe-brown eyes, and the Celestial Spirit Mage was the spitting image of a princess. Or a queen. Or an angel. Or a goddess. Juvia supposed it was to impress a certain dense Dragonslayer, but Natsu's idiocy prevailed, and Lucy's futile efforts were left to be appreciated by other male members. Hell, even Gajeel had grinned predatorily at the sight of her.

Juvia noticed and was bothered by, in particular, the attentions given by her Gray-sama.

"Lucy has such a great body," Warren had said after the blonde had stalked off, away from the salmon-haired moron.

"Such a pretty face too," Macao added. Wakaba wolf-whistled in agreement.

"She's such a beauty," Max sighed. Gray-sama had snorted derisively at this. Juvia, hiding quietly under the table he was seated at, hung on his every word.

"Lucy's a knockout. Jesus Christ, if Natsu won't make a move, then I will." This motion was seconded by the surrounding men, followed by cheers and laughter.

Juvia did not find it amusing at all. She turned herself into water and flowed away unnoticed amidst the commotion.

She had run straight home to her suite at Fairy Hills. She shed her Russian Cossack hat, coat, and undergarments with such speed that it would have done her Gray-sama proud. Peering closely at her reflection, Juvia scrutinized every inch of her naked body. She tugged on the fat on her arms, thighs, and abdomen. Eyes lingered on each pore, each blemish. She ran her fingers through unimpressive blue locks that never seemed to cooperate. She missed how they used to curl so neatly, but her barrel-curlers were ruined in one of her flood-inducing fits, and she had to do without them.

She spotted more imperfections with increasing speed, to her horror. _I'm bowlegged, I'm chubby, my boobs are weird, my skin is sickly pale, my eyes are ugly, my hair is dull, my nose is weird, my lips are too thin, my thighs almost touch, my hands are too small, my fingers are too short_… She tried and tried to find at least just one thing she liked about her body, but to her dismay, she found none.

Juvia Lockser was ugly. And she hated it.

Defeated, she threw herself onto her bed. She tried choking back her sobs, yet despite this, dark clouds started to gather outside. Whether she let herself cry or not, it would rain because frankly, she felt like shit. Thus, she allowed her tears to race down her cheeks.

She smothered her face into her pillow. _It isn't fair_ she silently screamed into it. _Why do some girls get to look so beautiful? Like Lucy, with her attractive, sexy girlishness. Like Erza, with her gorgeous body and flowing red hair. Like Mira, with her flawless angelic features. Like Cana, a rustic, sun-kissed, careless beauty. Like Lisanna, like Bisca, like Evergreen, like Lavi, like Kinana, like Levy, like Wendy…_

Azure eyes trailed to her bedside table, where the pack of chromatic Sharpies she had recently bought lay. Trembling, she reached out for it. Plastic was torn from cardboard, and she dumped the contents onto the bed sheets.

She pulled on the bits of flab coating her lower abdomen. She frowned. "Juvia is such a pig," she told herself bitterly. She grabbed a mustard yellow Sharpie and pulled the cap. She dipped the tip at one side of her stomach and began to write, in large, capital letters, '**FAT**.' The feel of the cold ink dripping from the marker and onto her skin soothed her, and she picked another colour.

Magenta. She had never liked the colour. She closed her mean eyes, and picturing her hideous, plain face and how the strokes were supposed to go, wrote the word **'UGLY'** from chubby cheek to chubby cheek, across the bridge of her upturned nose.

Encouraged, she picked up orange. '**DISGUSTING**' she scrawled from her left thigh to her knee. '**REPULSIVE**' she wrote on her right in emerald green.

Soon she wasn't just condemning the physical.

"Juvia is an even bigger idiot that Natsu-san. She can't figure out the most trivial of problems, or how to win Gray-sama's attention." '**STUPID**' in black on her forehead.

"Juvia is so pathetically jealous of her friends." 'ENVIOUS' in green on her leg.

"Juvia is so **VAIN** and **CONCEITED**."

**LOSER, PATHETIC, WORTHLESS, WEIRD, SELFISH, EVIL, SELF-INDULGENT, INSENSITIVE, CRUEL, SADISTIC, RECKLESS, UNREALISTIC, ABNORMAL, FAKE, LONELY, UNLUCKY, UNGRATEFUL, SLOW, DEMENTED, GOOD-FOR-NOTHING, HEAD IN THE CLOUDS, BITCH, CRAZY, INSECURE, BRASH, GLUTTON, LUSTFUL, STALKER, COWARD, ARROGANT, IRRATIONAL, WHORE, WEAK, TEARFUL, HIDEOUS, TALENTLESS… **

**BROKEN. **

In a barrage of colours, she had no more space left on her skin to fill with one word. By the time she had used all of the markers, Juvia was shaking with loathing for herself. She stood up slowly and walked to her full body mirror.

A rainbow of self-hate. What had she become? She crumpled to the floor, her chest wracking with the pain of not being good enough for anyone, for anything. She clutched her stomach as her breathing became shallow and raspy. She lay curled on the carpet and fell asleep crying, counting imperfections instead of sheep.

* * *

She woke up tucked comfortably in bed, dressed in her favourite nightgown. Her eyes and throat were still sore from the crying she had done the night before, and her stomach whined for the dinner she had forgone. Otherwise, she felt perfectly fine. She was, however, disturbed by the fact that her expensive French door had been broken down.

She took a look done at her body, and to her shock, it was scrubbed clean of all the abhorrent words she had carved into it with Sharpies. New tidings, with a smaller variety of colour, had replaced them.

"_Sexy, selfless, loyal_," said sloppy, brown handwriting on her right calf.

"_Adorable, kind-hearted, loving_," read a milky white cursive on her left shoulder.

"_Friendly, hilarious,"_ said silvery white on each of her palms.

"_Bright like the shining sun and blue sky,"_ was written in periwinkle blue.

"_Powerful, strong, brave,"_ read a neat, scarlet scrawl on her right forearm.

"_Beautiful inside and out,"_ said viridian print on the side of her entire left arm.

"_Open-minded, intelligent,"_ came from a sandy brown shade below both her knees.

"_Sisterly, amazing,"_ said words written in midnight blue ink.

"_Gorgeous ocean eyes,"_ said miniscule print in lavender on her left cheek.

"_Wonderful, caring,"_ read a deep purple script.

"_The best friend anyone could ever ask for,"_ was written in a magnificent golden pen.

Finally, Juvia decided to unbutton the top of her dress. Across her collarbone and above her heart, '_**PERFECT**__'_ was written, all caps, in a shade of blue that matched her hair exactly. If she could, she would add something. She would carve into her heart, "_Has the most amazing, perfect, understanding friends in all of Earthland._"

* * *

**DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN FAIRY TAIL. ALL CHARACTERS BELONG TO HIRO MASHIMA.**

A/N: That was completely random. Well, not entirely. Never mind. Thank you for taking the time to read this! Hopefully you review. Critiques, reviews, and yes, even flames are appreciated. Good God, I apologize for putting you through that. Summer has me too lethargic to redo this story. C'est la vie. Thanks again!


End file.
